November's greatest hits: Checks about Obamacare, Texas voter ID laws

Pants on Fire: The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.

Our Nov. 18 check of a Facebook’d claim comparing the Obamacare law to the measure that provided for prescription drugs for elderly Americans proved to be the most popular article we posted in November.

That story, drawing more than 14,000 views, rated as Mostly True the claim that Medicare Part D "was far more expensive than the Affordable Care Act and unlike" the act, "was never budgeted." According to data including Congressional Budget Office projections completed at the time each law came to be, the Obamacare law was "funded" and Part D "unfunded" and the former was projected to save $148 billion through 10 years and the latter to cost less than $501 billion (in 2013 dollars), also through a decade.

November’s other leading attractions (also stacked to the right) included:

--Our Pants on Fire for a claim by the Democratic Governors Association that the Texas law requiring voters at the polls to present photo IDs "is a blatant effort to defeat Wendy Davis by disenfranchising tens of thousands of women voters." This claim suffered from an absence of proof that the Texas law was intended to disenfranchise tens of thousands of women or has had such an immediate effect. We found it both incorrect and ridiculous.

--A claim by President Barack Obama, rated True, that a "million people … could get health insurance right away" if Texas expanded Medicaid as encouraged by the Obamacare law. State estimates show some 1.4 million to 1.7 million would be eligible immediately.

--Our check of Greg Abbott’s claim just before the November general election that in "reality," there have "been no problems whatsoever" with the Texas voter ID law. That was Mostly False; news stories revealed various if rare experiences that could be construed as problems, such as voters having to scramble to get the proper ID. There also was a surge in provisional (largely uncounted) ballots, though we did not determine whether the ID law was key to that.

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